Techmeme
May 17, 2021, 8:25 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Microsoft's board decided in 2020 Gates should leave the board as it probed claims Gates sought to initiate an affair with a Microsoft engineer in 2000  —  Company's board members began investigation in 2019 into woman's allegations of prior sexual relationship with Bill Gates …
New York Times:
Sources: long after his marriage, Bill Gates would pursue women at Microsoft, at times creating an uncomfortable workplace environment  —  Melinda French Gates voiced concerns about her husband's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and a harassment claim against his money manager.
Brian Stelter / CNN:
AT&T to spin off WarnerMedia and combine it with Discovery in a $43B deal; the new company will be run by Discovery CEO David Zaslav  —  New York (CNN Business)The streaming TV race is about to get even more competitive.  —  On Monday morning AT&T (T) and Discovery, Inc. (DISCA) …
Biz Carson / Protocol:
Q&A with Rick Klau, an ex-Google product manager and California's new CTIO responsible for building apps and services for various departments across the state  —  When Rick Klau joined the California government, he expected a culture shock after 13 years at Google.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Ride-hailing giant Gojek and e-commerce marketplace Tokopedia say they have merged to form GoTo Group, the largest tech group in Indonesia  —  Ride-hailing giant Gojek and marketplace Tokopedia said on Monday they have combined their businesses to form GoTo Group, the largest technology group in Indonesia.
Joshua Swingle / PhoneArena:
Jon Prosser leaks what he claims are Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro renders, as well as a promo video and images of Android 12, ahead of Google I/O  —  Google is rumored to be revamping Wear OS this year and the update is said to be so substantial that even Samsung is on board with the plans.
Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News:
Pandemic-induced rise in app ordering has given birth to the “appuccino”, a phenomenon driven by TikTok, where customized Starbucks drink suggestions go viral  —  Stomachs churned and food service workers broke out in a cold sweat when a photo of a long, complicated custom Starbucks order went viral on Twitter.
Parmy Olson / Wall Street Journal:
Profile of Foxglove, a tech-activism group famous for pushing UK into reassessing its use of algorithms, that's challenging Facebook and Uber on worker rights  —  Foxglove successfully pushed back on government tech tools and now is looking into bigger corporate targets

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Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
The $1.4B Startup Deciding What You See When You Shop Online | Sequen's Zoë Weil
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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Great Chat:
Too soon to call it a vibe shift?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Storm Clouds Ahead For Apple?, Debating Amazon's Bee Frontier, AI as UI
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Machine Gods:
Jensen Huang's Nvidiotic Spy Scandal + Can Dems Pass AI Regulation?
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Encore: Chuck Klosterman on Why Football Owns TV (and Why It Won't Forever)
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Invest Like the Best:
Zach Reitano - Building Ro and Why Healthcare Should Be 50% of GDP
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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More News

Shannon Liao / Washington Post:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Matt Burgess / Wired UK:
Clive Thompson / New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Zeke Faux / Bloomberg:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Stephanie Chan / Sensor Tower Blog:
José Adorno / 9to5Mac:
@antoniogm: